Two Gryffindors
by Vega Black62
Summary: A series of Drabbles about Alice and Frank Longbottom and their life together.
1. Who are you?

Gryffindor! Shouted the hat.

Alice walked toward the cheering Gryffindors. She glanced back toward the Hufflepuff table, where her friends, Dorcas and Emma sadly watched her. Emma gave a little wave.

Gryffindor was not Alice's choice. The year before, her two best friends became Hufflepuffs and returned from school with plans for all they would do when Alice joined them. Both her parents were from Hufflepuff families, and Alice wanted to be just like her Hufflepuff dad. But the hat told her that the sort wasn't determined by who your friends were or who you loved. "Who are you? Why should you be in Hufflepuff?" the Sorting Hat had asked. Alice hadn't known what to say. She'd never thought about such things before.

She sat with the Gryffindor first years. A tear ran down her cheek; she wiped it away angrily.

The other kids stared.

"I wanted to be in Hufflepuff," she told them. The house of warm rooms behind round doors, the house found behind the Still Life near the kitchen, was Hogwarts to her.

"Maybe you could ask a teacher to switch you," said Benjy, a Muggleborn boy she'd met on the train.

"Why would you want to be a Hufflepuff duffer?" asked a nasty looking teenager.

"Don't call them duffers." Alice snapped.

A redheaded girl named Molly turned to Alice. "You can't change your house," she said.

The Hufflepuff hater snorted. "I'd like to see her tell McGonagall she didn't want to be in Gryffindor."

"I don't think you're allowed to change," said the red headed girl. "Besides the Sorting Hat is always right -- you're supposed to be in Gryffindor. You are a Gryffindor."

Soon Alice would walk with the other kids up to the rooms in the tower, not down to the badger's burrow, because of who the Sorting Hat said she was.

"_But, who am I?"_ Alice wondered.


	2. What do you want?

"Don't you think it'd be a waste to miss out on your life's ambition because you're bad on a broom?" asked Frank. He and Alice had been given a list of maneuvers required of candidates for Auror. He spread his out on the Gryffindor table. "Most of these are Quidditch moves. I could teach them to you."

Alice looked down at her list as he spoke. Her blond hair was spread out around her like a shawl. She pulled it back and looked up at him. "Why do you want to do this?" Alice asked.

"I wouldn't want to get the Auror position because my chief rival never played Quidditch. I'd like to know I won for a better reason than my broom skills," Frank said. He looked around the Great Hall and lowered his voice. "There's a lot of stupid rumors going around. Are people really saying you should let me have the job?"

Alice nodded.

"They're idiots," Frank replied. "I don't need you or anyone else to step aside for me. I can win this just fine by myself."

She tilted her head a little to the side, a half smile on her face.

"I know. I sound like a complete prat, but -- don't do anything stupid."

"I'll do my best, Frank," Alice answered sweetly, "I usually try to avoid doing anything stupid, but I can't make any promises."

He was making mistake after mistake. He _knew _he was an arrogant prat.

Alice frowned at the paper. Her finger traced the diagrams of the broom maneuvers. Frank didn't think she'd master them on her own. He'd had to learn most of those moves from Hooch.

"I'd be stupid not to accept your help," Alice said.

_If she joined the Aurors they'd make her cut off that hair_, Frank thought.


	3. Endearing

Alice stood on the Quidditch pitch holding her wonky old broom waiting for Frank. She'd accepted Frank's offer of help because she didn't think she had a choice. Alice couldn't see how she was going to learn the maneuvers the Aurors required on her own. The thought irritated her. Alice noticed Frank hadn't offered a trade: her help with Transfiguration for his with these broom maneuvers, but then Frank Longbottom wouldn't ask for help with anything. He just offered it to others.

Alice was afraid she was making a mistake. She had fancied Frank in the past; at times she'd made a hobby of it, but those feelings had been entirely one sided. She was over him now. She didn't want to risk falling for him again just when she needed a clear head to apply for Aurors and study for her Newts.

A call caught her attention. Frank was walking up the Quidditch pitch carrying two brooms, waving and smiling at her. She liked his smile. She liked the oddest things about him. The last time she fell for him it had been his Patronus that grabbed her. She'd stood in Defense Against the Dark Arts watching him try to cast one, half hoping for something ostentatious or self-important that would amuse her. Instead of the lion, or panther that she expected, he cast a border collie with a solicitous and eager manner and she was smitten, but that had been a long time ago.

Frank reached her. His face turned serious."Do you mind? I brought my old broom for you. It's better for these tight maneuvers." He looked concerned and earnest.

Alice was powerfully reminded of the border collie. She decided not to worry about her feelings. How serious could they be if they were inspired by an endearing Patronus?


	4. Shams

They were supposed to be doing revisions for their NEWTS, but Frank was writing a letter and Benjy was reading a Muggle history book. Alice could guarantee that nothing in that book would appear on anyone's NEWT.

"Benjy, what are you doing?"

"Reading Gibbon, The Fall of the Roman Empire," he replied.

"Who for? Stalk in Muggle studies? It's not for Binn's class."

"I'm positive Stalk is ignorant of this book's existence."

"Why are you reading a Muggle book nobody's heard of when you should be doing revisions for exams?" asked Frank.

"NEWTs? Remember them Benjy?" Alice asked.

"I fear no NEWT. Unlike you and Frank, I've carefully chosen my future career. An OWL and a sense of humor are all that's required for Muggle relations. I already have the first and I'm working on the second. My presence in classes is as much a sham as Stalk's claim to be an expert on Muggles."

Benjy reached across and grabbed Frank's paper.

"It's a letter to my parents," Frank said. "They sent a list of things for me to improve."

Benjy tossed the paper aside without reading it. "Your parents are insane, Frank. I thought you knew that."

"Of course I know it. I'm not doing any of this. I just tell them what they want to hear."

"They're not concerned this little exercise will interfere with NEWTS?" asked Benjy.

"Success is assumed. They seek perfection."

"Your parents don't ask for much, do they?" Alice asked.

"Not much," he said and smiled at her.

_I really should decide how I feel about him_, thought Alice.

_NEWTS begin in a week. Frank's writing his parents a pack of lies, Benjy's reading the books we should be studying in Muggle Studies, and I'm pretending to do revisions while I ogle Frank. We're all mad._


	5. The Green Grass

"What will you do if the Aurors don't take you?" Alice asked. He was stretched out on his back in the grass. She sat cross-legged next to him.

"Become a curse breaker like my father," he answered quickly as if he always knew the answer. "What will you do?"

"I don't know. Auror is what I've wanted since I started having my own opinions."

He laughed. "I've never known you not to have your own opinions."

"No, really all my life my Mum's wanted me to be an Unspeakable. She tried to be one herself but missed one of the required Newts. She's wanted me to do it for her -- study death or love or who knows what from some secret room."

She smiled down at him and ruffled his hair. "My mother acts like she thinks being an Auror is an excellent idea, because she thinks it won't happen. She expects my broom skills to do me in. If they accept me she'll hate you forever. She knows You've been helping me."

"If they don't take you. Let's be curse breakers together."

Frank insisted that the rumors that the ministry were only taking one candidate were false. Everyone knew there was a war coming he'd say, they must need Aurors. He would never admit they might be in competition with each other. He always argued that they'd be taken together or they'd be refused together.

"And what if we're both accepted?" Alice asked. She wasn't sure if romance between Aurors was allowed.

"We'll meet on the sly," Frank said. "No one need know."

"Clandestine trysts? Now that sounds romantic." She gave him a cheeky grin. "Let's do it even if we don't have to." She leaned down to kiss him.

"Very well," he said against her lips. "Secret curse breaking lovers it is."


	6. My Browneyed Girl

Neville rooted through a box in the attic repeatedly interrupting his search to listen for any noise that might indicate his gran was in the kitchen below. He didn't want to risk her catching him looking through his parent's things. His search was private.

In stories orphans always found packs of old letters, magical messages or portraits of their parents which counseled and befriended them. That never happened to him. Neville did find a letter from Dumbledore that told a different story than he normally heard about his dad. His friends had smuggled firewhiskey into Hogwarts by substituting the contents of their butterbeer bottles for the drink and then celebrated his dad's birthday by exploding Muggle fireworks over the lake. They'd awakened and enraged the giant squid whose angry thrashing could be heard for hours after the festivities had ended.

The party had included all four houses, so out of gratitude for encouraging school unity Dumbledore declared that Frank could remain a prefect. A massive loss of points followed. Dad's party helped Slytherin win the house cup that year; they had the fewest attending and suffered the least number of penalties.

"Huh." Neville snorted.

Next Neville picked up a photo of his parents. His father stood behind Neville's mum, laughing, his arms wrapped around her. Familiar handwriting looped across the picture: "Sweet, Frank, but I don't have brown eyes." Someone had charmed it, because at his touch a song began to play. "Shh," he whispered as he listened. He didn't want any sound to attract his gran. The charm responded; the music quieted, but sang:

"Sometime I'm overcome thinking about

Making love in the green grass

behind the stadium

with you, my brown-eyed girl."

Neville smiled embarrassed and amused at the same time. He understood why these were hidden in the attic instead of spread around the house with his parent's other bits and pieces. He searched the box for more.


	7. Foolishness

Frank took Alice to hear _The Five Doxies _ in concert and then out for drinks at a Muggle pub afterward. She'd been relieved when he asked her; she knew then they were a couple. Before, even after all they'd done, she'd never been sure. From the beginning she'd wonder, "Are these lessons supposed to be dates?" She'd never understood his feelings. Alice hadn't known what to say to her friends when they asked her about Frank.

Dorcas had been very angry at her . "Snogging someone you're in love with who doesn't love you is stupid, Alice," she'd said. "It's practically the definition of stupid."

"Emma thinks its romantic," Alice had said knowing she sounded even more like a fool. Emma had as much sense as a puffskein when it came to wizards.

But thank Merlin, soon after that conversation Frank had asked her, and she was able to mollify Dorcas who was formidable when angry.

Now Frank made his feelings so clear she felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

"I never knew you fancied me," Frank said as they drank their Muggle beers.

She looked at him with surprise. "Everyone knew, Frank."

"You never acted like the other girls. You never came to Quidditch games to watch me play. You didn't come to my party even after I invited you."

"The firewhiskey and fireworks party? You were asking to get caught. I don't do things that are guaranteed to get me in trouble."

But from the tower windows she'd watched the drunken boys set off their fireworks in the moonlight, and she'd searched for Frank in the flashes of light. She'd laughed at their drunken antics and wished she'd been there with them even as she caught the lights of the Professors wands coming to stop the celebrations.

He laughed at her and said, "Alice, I love you."


	8. Together

He'd rushed to her house with his letter offering him a place in the Auror Training Program. She'd been attempting to contact him through the Floo network when he knocked at the door.

Frank knew as soon as he saw her face. "You got in too; I knew you would, Alice," he said and wrapped his arms around her. They Apparated together to the Hogshead where they sat in a darkened corner, the only customers in the place and talked, holding hands across the table until the elderly barman closed for the night.

"I love you," Frank said. "Whatever we do. Let's do it together."

"Of course," was Alice's only answer as she squeezed his fingers and smiled at him, silly with affection.

They hadn't said a word to their parents, yet.


End file.
